CATO on Afghanistan

Commentary By Ron Beasley

Eight years ago, a small number of U.S. personnel, working in tandem with local Afghan leaders, entered Afghanistan with a defined aim: to punish al-Qaida and overthrow the Taliban regime that harbored them. Over the past year, that mission has morphed into the much broader objective of rebuilding the Afghan state and protecting Afghan villages. Most recently, America's top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said a new strategy must be forged to "earn the support of the [Afghan] people . . . regardless of how many militants are killed or captured."

Such an undertaking, amounting to a large-scale social-engineering project, is unwarranted. The cost in blood and treasure that we would have to incur -- coming on top of what we have already paid -- far outweighs any possible benefits, even accepting the most optimistic estimates for the likelihood of success.

The essential question now is not whether the war is winnable, but whether the mission is vital to U.S. national security interests.

The above doesn't come from some dirty hippie's blog but from the conservative CATO institute in the post U.S. Must Narrow Objectives in Afghanistan by CATO's Malou Innocent and Christopher Preble.  They continue:

From this perspective the current open-ended strategy fails. The United States and its allies must instead narrow their objectives. A long-term, large-scale presence is not necessary to disrupt al-Qaida. Indeed, that limited aim has largely been achieved, with the exception of capturing Osama bin Laden.

What we have seen over the past eight years is a classic case of mission creep. U.S. military operations today draw from the "clear-hold-build" model offered in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, a volume that didn't even exist in 2001. It states, "Soldiers and Marines are expected to be nation builders as well as warriors rebuilding infrastructure and basic services."

"Nation Building" in Afghanistan is not in U.S. national security interests but is a mission impossible:

The United States does not have the patience, cultural knowledge or legitimacy to transform what is a deeply divided, poverty stricken, tribal-based society into a self-sufficient, non-corrupt, and stable electoral democracy. And even if Americans did commit several hundred thousand troops and decades of armed nation-building, success would hardly be guaranteed, especially in a country notoriously suspicious of outsiders and largely devoid of central authority.

It should be remembered that it was Afghanistan that finally brought down the already failing Soviet Union and that the U.S. has already been in that country longer than the Soviets were.